PJ The Belt - August 07, 2025


Alberta Will Need STATEHOOD Recognition From TRUMP - 2026 Vote Incoming! ｜ Independence Update!

Alberta LEAVES, Canada Becomes 3rd World Country! - TRUMP & 2026 INDEPENDENCE Vote! You WON’T BELIEVE What Canada JUST DID To Its OWN People!

Episode Stats


Length

12 minutes

Words per minute

167.53

Word count

2,050

Sentence count

113

People

Also mentioned:
Barry Cooper Trump Preston Manning Peter Lougheed Stephen Harper Keith Ellison Ebertys

Harmful content

Hate speech

3

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, we hear from Professor Barry Cooper from the University of Calgary about Alberta's rocky relationship with Ottawa, a clip from my recent conversation with the crew at Faith the Nation, and why the U.S. is likely to recognize an independent Alberta.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 We're going to have, as the American colonists had, help from abroad.
00:00:04.200 They relied on the French. We are going to have to rely on the Americans. 1.00
00:00:07.720 Hey, everybody. PJ here.
00:00:10.060 Got a powerful episode lined up today on the Alberta Independence Front.
00:00:13.560 First up, we hear from Professor Barry Cooper from the University of Calgary.
00:00:18.360 He breaks down Alberta's rocky relationship with Ottawa and how we got to this point.
00:00:23.160 Then we have a clip from my recent conversation with the crew at Faith the Nation.
00:00:26.880 We dive into growing American support for Alberta's independence, including talk of Alberta possibly becoming the 51st state.
00:00:34.920 We also cover when the real referendum vote might actually happen and how crucial international recognition is,
00:00:42.400 especially since reports indicate that the Trump administration would be willing to recognize Alberta's independence.
00:00:48.820 And finally, we hear from constitutional lawyer Keith Wilson,
00:00:52.480 who, in a recent interview, explained why the U.S. is likely to recognize an independent Alberta.
00:00:59.060 All that and other details you're not going to want to miss.
00:01:02.040 Let's get into the video.
00:01:03.520 Very quickly, though, if you enjoy these videos, please do me a solid and subscribe.
00:01:07.980 It's free, and you can always unsubscribe later if you change your mind.
00:01:11.620 Thank you, and back to the video.
00:01:13.320 Call a referendum on separation.
00:01:16.620 Cooper maintains it's time for a new relationship with Ottawa.
00:01:19.960 It's time to reset the agreement in Confederation, 0.66
00:01:22.820 one that was established to ensure Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and the Northwest Territories
00:01:27.500 would never have the power base needed to dictate the direction of their own territories,
00:01:32.720 let alone that of the country.
00:01:34.240 I invited Professor Barry Cooper to join me for a conversation that matters
00:01:38.820 about Alberta's mistreatment by Ottawa from the moment it was created.
00:01:44.460 Professor Cooper, welcome, and thank you for joining me for this very important conversation
00:01:49.940 about Western alienation, Alberta in particular, and the Prairie provinces in general.
00:01:56.200 What is your sense of where we are at in terms of mood?
00:02:00.000 Well, first of all, I wouldn't call it alienation.
00:02:02.040 I'd call it injustice, and I'd call it a growing awareness of a kind of structural injustice
00:02:07.080 that has been part of what is now the Western Canadian experience from the period from before Confederation.
00:02:13.640 I've written a fair bit about this, and it's something that's not going to go away.
00:02:18.320 So far as I'm concerned, there's no kind of compromise within Confederation
00:02:22.180 that Laurentian Canada would be willing to accept.
00:02:25.460 They've never accepted that Westerners, whether they were Indians, Métis, 0.52
00:02:29.680 settlers from the Orkneys, the Ebertys, the old Hudson Bay people, were ever partners.
00:02:36.160 They've even had problems with B.C., but nothing compared to what it's been like from what's now the Prairie province.
00:02:41.820 You know, common sense dictates that you do not negotiate from a position of weakness.
00:02:47.920 It also tells us that those who have taken power don't just simply give it back.
00:02:54.480 Something many Canadians and even Albertans ignore is for how long Western provinces have been trying to get a fair deal out of Confederation.
00:03:04.260 Alberta, specifically, has tried multiple ways, multiple times, and for multiple decades, with little to no success.
00:03:12.680 So the notion that we can try to fix Canada from inside is nothing more than wishful thinking.
00:03:21.200 Names like Peter Lougheed, Preston Manning, and even Stephen Harper come to mind on a long list of Canadians and proud Albertans
00:03:30.740 who have tried to get a fair shake out of the rest of Canada, but ended up hitting a wall.
00:03:37.320 Those who hold the power will never just give it away.
00:03:42.000 From, you know, conservative standpoint, you know, for me, being a conservative and being a Christian and obviously loving my country,
00:03:51.680 I would want, I'm actually rooting for Alberta's independence, but I would think that it would be really cool for Alberta itself to possibly become the 51st state.
00:04:06.320 Um, what is your take on the Alberta situation?
00:04:11.840 Would you prefer, um, complete independence or are you hoping for 51st state?
00:04:17.720 Where's, uh, where do you kind of lean in all of that?
00:04:20.060 Well, personally, I'm just open-minded.
00:04:23.780 I believe, as a base level, that Alberta, for one, culturally and even geographically just aligns better with the United States.
00:04:35.420 You look at the culture of Albertans today and even for the past hundred years, we definitely have a lot more in common with people in Montana, Idaho, Texas.
00:04:45.600 A good 25% of the ranchers when Alberta was being settled came from Oklahoma, Texas, and Montana.
00:04:53.580 So historically, there's that connection there.
00:04:56.220 Uh, but the way I view it is I'm open-minded.
00:04:58.720 We definitely need to probably go at the Texas way first.
00:05:01.720 I don't mean the violence part.
00:05:02.780 I mean, becoming a country first.
00:05:05.100 We need to see how that goes.
00:05:07.180 We need to see how we do, whether we can sit on our own two feet.
00:05:10.440 Uh, but what I can say is also that that is something that would likely be put to a vote once Alberta gets to that point.
00:05:18.040 If there's a large enough amount of the population of the new, you know, Alberta citizens, if you will, that want to become a part of the United States, well, there's probably going to be some sort of negotiation.
00:05:30.500 Would I prefer being part of the United States as opposed to staying in the situation that Alberta's in today?
00:05:36.800 Yes, but I also want to find out what an independent nation of Alberta looks like.
00:05:42.600 Uh, when, when does the, when is the referendum going to happen?
00:05:45.140 Is it going to happen?
00:05:46.360 Do you guys have churs?
00:05:47.900 How's that working?
00:05:50.740 Well, the, uh, it's before the courts now.
00:05:53.620 I don't know if you heard, but the, um, elections Alberta, the bureaucrats in there decided to send it, uh, for further analysis of its constitutionality.
00:06:03.300 Uh, basically adding red tape, creating some sort of a delay tactic to make things, you know, to have the anti-independence one, take the spotlight.
00:06:12.900 Uh, we'll see how that works, but yeah, it's before the courts now, elections Alberta, APP, uh, deposited into elections Alberta and the bureaucrat, the top guy sent it before a judge.
00:06:23.740 Uh, that's already in the process, uh, there's going to be hearings, uh, the lawyers from the APP are going to be making the case that it is constitutional.
00:06:32.060 It's actually, it actually should take precedent over the other one because it's an actual constitutional question as opposed to a policy question.
00:06:39.480 We're still aiming for spring of 2026 to, to get that referendum going.
00:06:45.240 You said 60% of her base is, uh, supporting of, uh, separation, annexing, whatever it's called, so on and so forth.
00:06:52.840 So, like, real world, in terms of Alberta population, what, what are, what are those numbers dissolve into?
00:06:58.380 What does it look like when you talk about, when you go to Starbucks or in the street?
00:07:01.560 You know, is this like a realistic thing in terms of random conversations or random chatter that's happening in the real world?
00:07:08.080 They did a poll recently. Two-thirds of her base support Alberta independence, but that doesn't mean two-thirds of Albertans.
00:07:15.800 There's been, there's been polling, which tells us kind of where we're at, more or less.
00:07:20.580 The lowest polling has shown that a third of Albertans, that's 33%.
00:07:24.900 And mind you, this pollster, because you know not all polls are created equal, right?
00:07:28.540 You know that a lot of them come with their own biases.
00:07:30.280 So, this pollster is left-leaning, heavy left-leaning, and he put it at 33%.
00:07:36.320 Unprecedented. It's never gone up that high.
00:07:39.180 And then a more centrist to right-leaning pollster had it mid-40s.
00:07:45.480 I'm talking 45, I think, which, again, this is a real number.
00:07:51.140 And obviously, the cities is a bit more difficult, because cities tend to be more left-leaning.
00:07:55.820 But you go to rural Alberta, and a lot of people are talking about it.
00:08:00.740 A lot of people are putting down those maple leaves and raising Alberta flags.
00:08:04.740 A lot of Albertans feel like there's just no hope here.
00:08:07.220 So, you can hear it at the doors, mostly in rural and the suburbs.
00:08:11.360 The cities, not so much.
00:08:12.900 And that's what we're working towards, is to educate people in the cities.
00:08:16.320 I want it to happen, but am I not correct that, like, over here in the U.S., just to let you in,
00:08:22.040 we'd have to have a two-third of all the states essentially vote, similar to, like, a constitutional amendment.
00:08:27.640 I don't really know what the process would be.
00:08:29.200 But just in my, you know, because I'm only smart because of AI nowadays,
00:08:33.600 but when I AI'd it, I think it was telling me that there was a dominant percentage of the provinces
00:08:39.800 would also have to vote to allow you out of the union.
00:08:43.200 Is that not correct, or can you enlighten us on that?
00:08:45.800 It's never been done before, so it's uncharted territory.
00:08:48.940 But what the law says, which is called the Clarity Act, and they created that law because Quebec came so close, right?
00:08:55.220 So, they had to create a law like, okay, what if these people got to that 50% plus one vote, right?
00:09:00.280 What would have happened?
00:09:01.180 Yeah, they would have to enter into negotiations.
00:09:04.180 That's what the law says.
00:09:06.120 Albertans vote as a majority to separate from Canada.
00:09:10.420 Canada would have to negotiate.
00:09:12.040 It doesn't say that they could just say no.
00:09:15.360 And a big difference maker is that at that point, if there's a stalemate,
00:09:21.280 what makes Alberta a nation is international recognition.
00:09:26.840 So, if you have any major country, and I would dare say a little neighbor to the south,
00:09:31.760 which is the most powerful country on earth,
00:09:33.960 indicating what Canada just indicated for Palestine,
00:09:37.600 that they're going to recognize it as a state, a two-state solution, if you will,
00:09:42.680 then we have all the chips.
00:09:45.100 And like Trump would say, we have all the cards.
00:09:47.140 They have no cards.
00:09:48.380 If the USA says we're going to recognize their independence, they have no cards.
00:09:52.520 I've covered this topic of international recognition on this channel several times,
00:09:57.080 and it ain't coincidental.
00:09:58.740 My goal is to drive home just how crucial this is
00:10:01.920 in this process Albertans are about to go through.
00:10:04.440 After a successful referendum, the next most important event that makes Alberta a country
00:10:10.360 on that very day is receiving international recognition from other nation-states.
00:10:16.320 And if it just so happens that Albertans get this acknowledgement from the most powerful nation on earth,
00:10:22.820 then there's little to nothing Canada can do,
00:10:25.960 other than start packing their bags and getting them out of Albertan territory.
00:10:30.700 So under law in Canada, because of the 1998 reference case and the Federal Clarity Act,
00:10:39.620 it says that once there is a successful vote on a clear question by a province to succeed,
00:10:47.060 then the other provinces, First Nations and the federal government are under a positive legal duty
00:10:52.060 to enter into good faith negotiations as to the terms upon which the province will become an independent country.
00:10:58.880 I do not expect good faith negotiations.
00:11:02.520 I expect them to thwart things, force court applications.
00:11:07.520 So, well, why am I optimistic that this could still happen then if I'm of the view
00:11:12.400 that the federal government may not enter into good faith negotiations?
00:11:15.720 But the most important one is the United States.
00:11:18.900 So paragraph 155 of the Supreme Court of Canada decision talks about this scenario,
00:11:25.000 and it hints at if the federal government and the other parties don't enter into good faith negotiations,
00:11:30.340 it doesn't preclude international recognition.
00:11:32.800 It does not preclude other countries giving unilateral international recognition to Alberta in this instance, right?
00:11:40.760 Well, the APP sent a delegation down several months ago to meet with a delegation of the U.S. State Department in Washington,
00:11:48.100 and they indicated to that APP delegation that they believe that the Trump administration would be prepared,
00:11:56.460 following a successful referendum, to acknowledge statehood independence of Alberta.
00:12:02.440 All right, thanks for watching. Thank you for subscribing. Special thanks to those of you who have donated to this project.
00:12:08.420 It is much appreciated, and it helps me continue making videos. See you on the next one. Peace.